Give Eliza Dushku credit: despite being told that she has tentacles, the actress gamely carries on with our interview.

Let’s clarify that adjective, shall we? The 32-year-old actress has a career that flexes into some fascinating nooks and crannies. Consider: her resume includes not one, not two, but three Joss Whedon series (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse, a series they produced together); voicing characters in video games such as WET; movie roles alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio (This Boy’s Life) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (True Lies); and voicing iconic characters such as Catwoman (Batman: Year One) and She-Hulk in the upcoming animated series Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.

Oh, and she also co-stars in the pilot of The Saint, a TV series currently looking for a home. The girl has reach.

“Uh, yeah. I always like to think of myself with a lot of tentacles, in a good way. You’ve given me a new way of envisioning myself,” Dushku says, playing along over the phone from L.A.

Her recently redesigned website, elizapatriciadushku.com, offers insight into facets of Dushku’s life, from her work with THRIVEGulu, a non-profit organization working in Uganda that she co-founded with her mother, to her latest glam shots (did I mention that she is ridiculously good looking?) to her adventures in dining as an avowed foodie.

If you aren’t a fan of the Boston native before speaking with her, you’ll be won over in short order. Her easy sense of humour combines with a contagious enthusiasm for what she does and the fans that support her varied career choices. She’s got 1.4 million Twitter followers and counting, and is about to jet off to Australia for a comic convention when I catch up with her.

Question: You’ve got quite the reach in terms of pop-culture. You’re in everything from The Saint to Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. to your recent appearance on The Talking Dead.

Answer: “I definitely geeked out on that. I was majorly into that. A week later, I was doing The Nerdist with (Chris) Hardwick and a bunch of his guy friends. It just honestly seems like there is so much to do and so many avenues in this time when you can synergize with different people and cross-pollenate, just buzz all around. There is never a dull moment.

“I am also someone who likes to say ‘Yes’ to a lot of things. . . Every actor, at a certain point, is taught about how to be discerning. At first you would do everything for anything, then you get a little taste of success. . . You start to be taught to say ‘No’ to a lot of things and that doesn’t necessarily serve some people in the way that their team hopes it will. . . I have a great team, and we are ‘Yes’ people if it’s a great group involved and we see the vision. . . . As far as having different tentacles, it’s a prize to be able to say ‘Yes’ to these different things.”

Q: At events such as Comic Expo, people stand in line for hours to meet you. Who would you stand in line to meet?

A: “I stood in line to meet Noam Chomsky after a lecture that we saw him give. . . . I am just like anybody else, if I’m a fan of someone or something or someone’s work. I think it’s a real treat to get to have that time, which is part of why I do it (attend fan conventions). I really enjoy it. There’s nothing like a strong fan base like that. It’s just (having) those funny moments, or they’re genuine and heartfelt. I’ll meet somebody who says ‘I’ve wanted to tell you something for 20 years.’ Let’s do it! What is it? Bring it! I really like it: I get to travel and go meet people on their home turf.”

Q: What was the most memorable concert you’ve been to?

A: “In Boston, it’s a big deal every August when Jimmy Buffet comes to Great Woods. . . . One of my first boyfriends used to have his mother and uncles and they’d all go down to these Buffett concerts and it became a tradition.

“I love Jimmy Buffett, man. Talk about a bunch of happy, drunk parrot heads. . . . People would come in with pickup trucks full of sand and they would dump all the sand and pop in a few beach chairs and an umbrella and a margarita bar. It was like a pop-up beach in the middle of a Boston parking lot. You’d walk around; people would make you margaritas, take tequila shots. It was awesome. Now I know what I’m going to do this August!”

Q: What’s your secret talent?

A: “I do have a talent for world travel. I can hop on a plane on such last-minute notice, on minutes’ notice, and go anywhere. I credit my crazy but awesome mother with that. When we were kids, she sent my brother and I to China for a summer, for 40 days, with $1,000 each and a Lonely Planet guidebook. I was 14; he was 18. She was, ‘Go to eight cities by train. Whooo! With no reservations!’ And we just showed up and it was always like that. I loved it.”

(She also mans a mean snow blower, clearing her parents’ place of the white stuff during the big blizzard in Boston this winter.)

Q: You’re a fan of The Walking Dead. What is your plan to survive the zombie apocalypse?

A: “I could give you a whole layout if I wasn’t out of time. (She laughs.) It’s a real Dushku zombie apocalypse survival extravaganza. I have put some thought into it. (As she notes on her website, Dushku is “a tomboy for life. I can fight, shoot, protect and recover from injury quite nicely.”)

“One thing I have done on the side is I took a modern backyard food production course through UCLA, partly inspired by The Walking Dead because I realized I better know how to get my garden on if it goes down. . . When the group on the farm is doing all the garden work, I’ll be coming correct.”

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